


Within Hand's Reach

by Rainah (RainahFiclets)



Category: Spartacus Series (TV), Spartacus: Gods of the Arena
Genre: F/M, Gen, Melitta & Gannicus, Melitta & Gannicus & Oenomaus, Oenomaus & Gannicus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-01
Updated: 2014-01-01
Packaged: 2018-01-07 02:10:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1114280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RainahFiclets/pseuds/Rainah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Melitta, Oenomaus, and Gannicus before Gods Of The Arena. Back when they were only a house slave, a champion, and a boy with haunted eyes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Within Hand's Reach

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Oaxara](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oaxara/gifts).



> The friendship of these three is one of my favourite things about the series. Such deep, unlikely bonds. This is my attempt to explore how it came to pass.
> 
> \- Dis Pater is a Roman god of the underworld, not slang for the father of the house

Melitta didn't remember her first impressions of the gladiator who would become her husband. He hadn't been champion then, just another one of the many men in Batiatus's ludus. A rising star, certainly, favoured by master Titus and treated like a son, but not special enough to catch her eye. She'd been but a girl after all when Lucretia had wed Titus' son, bringing Melitta and several others with her to his grand house by the cliff.

Her first day in the ludus... that she did remember. The grandness of the fine house, the harsh sounds of swords whenever they ventured out onto the balcony. And above all the sun floating just above the cliff's edge, where they entire world seemed to fall away.

"It looks like the end of the Earth," she whispered to her Domina, when Lucretia had called for her to bring more wine. Below them, the gladiators fought perilously close to the abyss. "I would be frightened, to fight so close."

"Such is the life of a gladiator," Lucretia said, taking her new husband's hand.

"My gladiators are never afraid," Batiatus boasted, his smile disarming. "They are forged in blood and sand, to take their place in the arena."

"The arena," she breathed, and her Domina smiled indulgantly.

"Tomorrow," she promised. "Quintus will see our men fight."

"Titus' men," he corrected, but Lucretia just gripped his hand tighter.

" _Your men._ They are yours, Quintus."

"Not truly."

"Then we shall get you men," Lucretia swore. "Men who will obey _you_ , who will fight for _your_ glory." 

He nodded, and in front of all the men he kissed her like she held the very sun itself. Melitta didn't understand, from where she stood just behind them with a jug of wine, but it did not matter. Quintus wanted men, so he would buy them. That was the way of the world.

The first time she took note of the man called Oenomaus was at the games. He fought two men at once, taking each with a brutal sword through the skull only after the crowd chanted eagerly for their death. She noticed because there was no bloodlust in him - he fought with passion, certainly, but without anger. He turned brutal slaughter into something more than savagery, sending each to respectful end. She saw the smile only later that night, attending Titus as the pair feasted together.

"One of Lucretia's girls?" he asked Titus, a statue that gave nothing away.

"Yes, her body slave." Titus nodded at her to speak.

"Melitta. I enjoyed watching you in the arena." He was so tall, a giant even when sitting. 

His answer was still grim. "I fight to honour my dominus."

She nodded again, turning away. Titus' gladiator was a rock who had no emotion, not even to someone who tried to speak to him as a friend. She spent the rest of the night in silence. And if his eyes followed her when she left she did not notice.

\- - - - - - - - -

His eyes did not follow her. She was only a house slave, one of many serving the house like he did on the sands. But she was sweet and she was loyal, and Titus spoke highly of her like he never spoke of Lucretia. He did not see her often, this girl of wise words and level head, but when he did it brought a smile to his eyes. 

Over the space of years they become... friends. Nearly. Had she still been a little girl, they would be. But Melitta was a woman grown, and beautiful beyond any he had ever seen. She _cannot_ be immune either, he thought, she cannot mistake the way his eyes linger upon each other when they part.

When the thrust the mantle of champion from Adrianus, Titus took him to the edge of the cliff and asked if there is anything he would have as reward. "Feasts, monuments, whores even - I know Quintus is fond of them." 

Oenomaus ignored the insult towards Lucretia and went to one knee. Titus was expecting him to refuse, to say what he always has - he fights for the honour of the house. But tonight there was something he would ask.

"I would ask for Melitta, Dominus, the body slave of your son's wife."

Titus blinked in surprise. "She is no whore, whatever her Domina may be. Ask another favour.”

"I would ask to take her as wife, Dominus." 

He bowed his head, feeling the weight of the words, until he felt Titus' hand on his shoulder. Fatherly, as it always had been.

"You care for her?" A single nod, and Titus collected himself. “Very well. She is yours. You may be wed at daybreak." He rose. “I will inform my son’s wife.” It had been years, and he still rarely called Lucretia by her name.

\- - - - - - - - - 

Lucretia called for her when the moon was high. Melitta brought the jug of wine with her, assuming it was only the usual restlessness that kept her Domina awake. Instead she found her mistress fully clothed and already standing. "Domina."

"Do you desire my husband's champion?" Lucretia asked, with little preamble. 

_Oenomaus?_ "Domina?" 

"Oenomaus asks for your hand." There was something brewing there, beneath Lucretia's eyes. "And Titus finds himself inclined to grant request."

 _Oh._ She nodded, lowering her eyes. Heart fluttering strangely. _Oenomaus. I will wed a gladiator. Not just any gladiator, but the champion of Capua. Oenomaus, a dear friend._ "I shall do as commanded, Domina, see my husband well cared for."

It was the right thing to say. Lucretia took her head in both hands, looking kind for once. "You are a treasure above all others I have. I will not have you in that filthy ludus. You will stay here, and visit him when so desiring."

"Yes Domina. Gratitude." It looked like Lucretia wanted to say more, but instead she just plucked the jug of wine from Melitta's hands and sent her away to prepare.

\- - - - - - - - -

He had never felt fear in the arena. It was what he was born to do, what he had trained for all his life. This.... was not. Taking Melitta by the hand, leading her through the ludus to his cell. It seemed so small now, a tiny room. The walls were not clean. He noticed the smallest of flaws as she stood before him. Waiting.

"I fear I have made a grave mistake." He felt so foolish. So presumptuous. To think she held desire for him, to live the meager life he offered.

Melitta took a trembling breath. "It is not so." She touched his cheek, running a hand down his marble chest. Her other hand reached up to pull the string on her dress. "I am blessed by the gods to call such a man my husband." She tilted her head up, he leaned down, and the world came alive between them.

\- - - - - - - - -

They had years to learn more of each other. Their time was carefully controlled; Melitta in the house as Lucretia's body slave, Oenomaus as the champion of the house of Batiatus. But each night she spent in his arms brought them closer together, and each time they parted she was more in love.

She was dreaming of him they day Quintus got his gladiators: A ferocious Gaul, two sullen Greeks, and a man so blonde he could only be a Celt. Not a man, even, but a boy already bloody from battles fought in the foreign wars. Out of the four of them, he was the one she noticed. They called him Gannicus.

Oenomaus spoke of the boy as well. While he was capable with a blade, he reacted sharply when a man came upon his back, and when not on the sands his eyes grew distant with some forgotten hurt. Oenomaus spoke of how his eyes did not follow the clashing of swords, but the faces of those wielded them. He did not have the heart of a gladiator, Oenomaus claimed, and was unlikely to so much as receive the mark of the brotherhood. 

She thought so too, until she watched him kill one of his fellow recruits in a sparring match. They had been trading taunts back and forth in a tongue she did not know, getting more and more heated until the boy at lunged. Swords clashed, and Gannicus took his opponent's blade before driving both of them through the man's skull.

"My new man gives appearance of an animal!" Quintus declared beside her. "Doctore, see him to the style of Dimachaerus from now on!" Gannicus looked up at the balcony, nodded that he had heard, and spat blood onto the sand.

\- - - - - - - - -

"You fought well upon the sands today." 

Oenomaus found him eating alone, this fair-haired boy who sought no sword but killed so well.

"Gratitude," the boy nodded, then looked at him uncertainly. "You stand champion." 

"I do," he said, sitting the opposite way beside him.

Even the gods could not see into the depths of Gannicus' eyes. "I would seek the same."

"You have no love of blood or battle," Oenomaus protested. "Why seek the title of champion?"

His mouth twisted. "A man can only fight his fate for so long. I am tired to fighting. Of a sort." The last was delivered with bitter laugh.

"Then embrace the brotherhood," Oenomaus told him. "And see new purpose formed." He could give nothing more to the man. But every day he paired with Gannicus, clashing swords beneath the burning sun. Gannicus fought with more daring than sense, and the reminder to guard his flank was constant in the first few weeks. 

Slowly, he learned. And when Oenomaus left the sands to eat with his fellow warriors Gannicus trailed behind, trying his best not to look lost. His wariness was betrayed only by the tension in his body, a tension that dissipated when Barca and Auctus clapped him on each shoulder and handed him a bowl of umtampered-with porridge.

A month later, when he won the mark of the brotherhood in single combat, everyone cheered.

\- - - - - - - - -

Melitta watched from the pulvanus when her husband took the sands against the Shadow of Death. Gannicus had laid out several gladiators already, the primus reserved for Oenomaus alone. He fought bravely, but she had never seen a creature like Theokoles. The battle was lost the moment he touched the sands. Lucretia's nails dug into her arm as Oenomaus was slashed once, twice, three times before falling. 

Melitta let out a muffled cry, using every ounce of willpower to try to stay still and not react. Her eyes were fixed on the blood pooling out onto the sands. Her husband's blood. Her husband, dying.

Everything was a blur. Oenomaus immediately being granted life, rushing back to the medicus, how he screamed as they cauterized his wounds. How the medicus had left her to watch him and warned her not to expect too much.

"-And disappear from sight!" Gannicus blew through the door in an anxious rage, still covered with the blood and dust from the arena. "How is he? Melitta!"

"He is alive." She didn't look up from her husband's face. He was asleep, having lost consciousness sometime around cauterizing the second wound. She couldn't imagine the pain of it. "That is all I know."

"He will live." 

Even after fighting to the death Gannicus had too much energy to sit. He paced up and down the length of Oenomaus' bed. Like every gladiator, unused to the necessity of stillness. "He will live." It brought the ghost of a smile to her lips, that he held her husband so dear.

"If he had naught but your fury to aid him he would live. You would battle Dis Pater himself and return him from the underworld." 

"I do not worship those gods," he told her shortly. That is a surprise.

"Do Celts not worship Dis Pater as well? And his goddess Aerecura?" That was what the girl Diona had told her.

"I raise my voice to no gods, be they Roman or those of my homeland," he declared, then softened. It probably had to do with the way he glanced down at Oenomaus' battered body. "Not since my feet left familiar soil."

"And are the sands not familiar enough?" she asked quietly. "You have lived here for many years."

"And on Roman soils for more," he shook his head ruefully. "I'm afraid I have lost all faith in the gods."

"Then I pity you."

"It is I who pity you," he looked back at Oenomaus. "For the hope you've left to lose."

\- - - - - - - - -

Despite the harshness of his words Gannicus could feel little pity for Melitta. She had found happiness with a loving husband. Oenomaus will surely return to the sands soon, even if Gannicus stands champion in the wake of his long recovery. And when the memories get a little too sharp for his care he douses them with enough wine and danger to get him through the day. The day is for fighting. The night is for peace.

He finds Oenomaus most nights, and the two talk deep into the night. Melitta is there when she can be, and they all raise cups of wine in merriment. Things are peaceful and things are good. Sometimes he looks at them in mild disbelief, this strange couple who have taken him in against all better judgement and turned him into something valuable. But mostly, he is content to drink and jest at the cruelties of the world. 

It is not a happy life. Certainly not for him, and part of him knows that only deep-rooted ties allow Melitta and Oenomaus to speak of their masters with such fondness. They too, chafe at invisible bindings holding them to place. But in the dark, in Oenomaus' room with the only people in the world he can call friends, Gannicus is content. 

It is enough.


End file.
